


no sweeter innocence (than our gentle sin)

by sameboots



Series: the no sweeter innocence series [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, soft and gentle kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 20:10:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18581728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sameboots/pseuds/sameboots
Summary: They've survived the Battle of Winterfell, but not without grave cost. Brienne seeks comfort from Jaime in the aftermath.--He kisses her like she's the answer. The answer to what, she's not sure. She kisses him like he never needed to ask.





	no sweeter innocence (than our gentle sin)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meditationsinemergencies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meditationsinemergencies/gifts).



> This is, obviously, written pre-8x03. I've killed one (arguably) major character, but I've ignored the rest of the battle. Handwave that they won and that lots of people died, but for the sake of this story, that's not vital. This is a story about loss and comfort, about Brienne needing a small amount of control and a lot of comfort. Largely inspired by the fact that Jaime Lannister has lost all ability to control his face around her and constantly looks at her like she's the most magnificent being he's ever seen. 
> 
> There is some very mild/soft kink. It's entirely possible you won't read it as kink, but I intended it to be a little kinky. But super romantic kink.

They survived the battle, but barely. Brienne can still smell the coppery scent of blood, the putrid smell of shit, the decaying sweetness of dead bodies as she cut them down. The individual actions are a blur, the whole thing just a rush of sore muscles, the impact of bodies, the slices into her skin. She knows the dead are innumerable. She saw Pod fall before her, a sword slicing right through him. Brienne knows that at some point she will cry, will feel herself collapsing inward as she did when Renly died, when Galladon drowned. But for now she is blank, a hollow where her emotions should be. She doesn't even hurt. Brienne has experienced it before, the fire of battle in her veins, the rush of survival. 

The soldiers left alive retreat back to Winterfell. Brienne has not seen Jaime. She did not see him fall, but the field was a sea of bodies, both human and other. The sun is just beginning to crest over the land, casting long shadows, with golden light bathing the bloody, battered bodies. 

Then she sees him. She catches his eye and can see the slack of wonder bathe his face, can feel the warm rush of heady relief and a desperate desire to touch him, to make certain he isn't a mirage. He takes a breath that wracks his whole body and then he is striding toward her, away from Winterfell, away from safety, into a pile of bodies, the most determined look she's ever seen on his face. Brienne finds her own strides lengthening, becoming faster as she draws closer.

Jaime's arms are around her, pulling her in, his lips crushing to hers, his beard scratching her face. He tastes like soot and sweat, like the sharp cold of fear and the warm rays of sunshine. Brienne clutches him, not caring that their armor clanks together, that it's harder to get to him, harder to feel him. He kisses her like she's the answer. The answer to what, she's not sure. She kisses him like he never needed to ask.

\--

They part when they reach Winterfell. Brienne must report to Sansa, must check that Sansa is safe and was well protected in the crypts during the battle. It feels like days and no time at all until she is finally able to return to her own room. Brienne feels like she's dreaming as she makes her way through the castle. It's as if she's gone deaf. She's aware of the movement and the shouts, of the crying and wailing of women and children who have lost their husbands and fathers, but she hears none of it. She finds herself in front of a door, knocking strongly against the wood. 

Jaime opens the door to her in only his soft pants, his hair still damp from his own bath. She traces a wayward drop of water as it wends its way over his abdomen. He says nothing, only opens the door wider to let her in.

"You said that you would be honored to serve under me," Brienne begins, her words slow and carefully chosen. Jaime nods slightly. "Did you mean that to be limited to the battlefield?"

Brienne prays that Jaime understands her. That he doesn't willfully turn this into a joke or assume she's speaking of the training yard. Brienne doesn't know how to be braver than she is now, should Jaime not understand.

Jaime swallows and she traces the rise and fall of his throat. "No, my lady," he says, softly, quietly. 

It would hurt less if he punched her in the stomach, the ache she feels at being called that. She allows, allowed, so few people the leeway. She closes her eyes against the sharp pain, guilt and grief tangled in her guts. "Please, don't --" 

"No, _Ser_ ," he corrects himself. 

It's a rush, warmth spreading through her, like being submerged in a hot bath. Brienne takes a calming breath. 

"I need help removing my armor," she tells him. It's not strictly the truth. She has removed her armor before. She knows Jaime knows this. But tonight -- tonight she needs help. 

"Of course, Ser." Jaime approaches her. He looks steady and strong, weary but somehow calm while a storm rages inside her mind. 

Jaime keeps his eyes steady on her as he unwraps the belt from around her waist, the ruthless tugs against worn leather a steady rhythmic pull as he undoes it. Jaime only looks away from her eyes when his hands settle on the shoulder straps of her armor. She realizes as he pulls and tugs and the straps give way easily how practiced he is at doing this one-handed on himself. It didn't occur to her that he might have a harder time, only aware when she saw him that she needed him somehow. He continues with an efficiency born of daily repetition over years. Her pauldrons are removed and set aside, followed by her cuirass, and finally her bracers. 

Brienne doesn't have time to wonder whether he will leave her to it. He uses hand and stump to push the heavy doublet off her shoulders. He folds it haphazardly, placing it in a pile on the nearby table. She stands before him in only her tunic, pants, and boots.

He takes a half-step away from her. 

"You need to bathe," he says, brushing at her cheek.

She looks down at herself, at the strangely clean tunic and pants against the soot, blood, grime, and gore coating her exposed skin. The stains of perspiration are the only indication on her underclothes of the horror she endured mere hours ago. Brienne lifts her gaze to find Jaime looking at her intently, like she's a riddle he's trying to solve.  


"I --" she starts, stops. 

She tries to gather herself and finds that she can't bring herself to leave him. The comfort of his room. The comfort of his presence. Jaime. Jaime who has been her enemy, her captive, her tormentor, her companion, her savior. She's spent so many years feeling his absence like a bruise, an ache in her chest. Their infrequent encounters so defined by war and strife. It makes no sense, has never made any sense, that she longed to reach for him, that she has for years. 

Brienne can't stand the feeling in her chest, a rending like claws tearing at her insides. She looks behind her at the still steaming bath in front of the fireplace. She takes a deep breath and tries to piece the thoughts together, how to request something she isn't quite sure she can handle, but that she needs so horribly. 

She startles when she feels tugging at the laces of her tunic. Jaime is carefully, slowly undoing the tie and loosening the strings. He lets his fingertips rest lightly on the curve of her breastbone. "Do you need help bathing, Ser?" he asks her. 

" _Yes_." It is just short of a plea, desperation obliterating shame. 

Jaime slides past her to make his way to the tub, waiting at the side for her. Quiet, calm, his face steady, limbs loose and confident. She once thought him half a god, but that's not quite right. He's not godly in these moments, he's wonderfully, wholly human. He's beautiful, the lines, edges and planes of his body wrought with kind hands. She's felt the warmth radiating from his bare skin now, but she doesn't know what it would feel like to be held against him. She doesn't know if the heat of him will light her like kindling until she burns to ashes. 

Still, she walks to him, coming to rest in front of him. Jaime picks up the cloth from the lip of the tub, dipping it in the still warm water. He rubs the rag against the lump of lye soap and ever so gently, Jaime washes the gore from her cheeks, her chin, her forehead. Brienne closes her eyes against the sensation. She doesn't realize until it's gone just how uncomfortable her skin was, how tight and choking the mud and blood were. Jaime rinses the dirty rag, cleaning it of grime and soap, before running the clean cloth and clearing away lingering soap and dirt. 

Brienne opens her eyes again when his hand grips the hem of her tunic. She doesn't reach to help him, but she does shift and twist as he pulls the right side up so her arm can slip out, turning his body at an odd angle to do the same with the left side. Jaime lifts the tunic over her head, carelessly dropping it to the floor. He does not look her up and down, doesn't allow his eyes to fixate on her now bared breasts, such that they are. 

Jaime repeats the process of wetting the cloth and coating it with soap. Brienne can't help the soft noise that escapes her when the warm water sluices down her body, running over the slight curve of her breasts, a drop catching on the tip. The chilled air of the castle cools the water, her nipples tightening and sending a shock to the very center of her. Jaime continues bathing her as if he is oblivious to her body's reactions, to how rapid her breathing has become. He finishes washing and rinsing the front of her before walking around her, cleaning the muscular length of her back. 

All of her senses are in turmoil. She feels every inch of her damp skin, can somehow hear both her own heartbeat and the soft padding of Jaime's feet as he moves to face her again, the smell of the crackling fire and the faint lavender of the soap, and when her eyes open again to find him with a look coiled in his eyes and the tightening of his jaw that leaves her breathless. 

He slowly kneels to the floor, gaze holding hers, his head tipping back to maintain the eye contact as he settles at her feet. His hand makes a path down her leg from hip to the top of her boots. "Lift your foot, please," he says, his voice so soft is still as shocking as a crack of lightning in the suffocating silence of the room. 

Brienne does. Jaime braces himself and tugs off first her right boot, then her left. He lifts off his haunches to untangle the laces of her pants. Jaime keeps his eyes trained on her stomach as he pushes the pants off of her hips until they pool at her ankles. She lifts her legs out of them before he can request it, kicking them out of the way. She swears she can feel the touch of his eyes as he traces a line from ankle to hip. 

He begins washing her at her feet, careful not to tickle the delicate soles, moving to her ankles, calves, up the outside of one thigh and down the other. Brienne's legs had been clenched together up to this point. She takes one heavy breath and then eases her feet apart, revealing the delicate skin of her inner thighs to his gaze. He says nothing, doesn't even look her in the eye and repeats the action, the cloth rough against her leg. She holds her breath when he reaches the crux of her thighs, the places only she has ever touched. But then he passes it by, running the cloth down her left leg. 

Jaime stops and looks up at her. He offers her the cloth, rising up on his knees as if the stand. Instead, Brienne places her hand on his shoulder holding him in place. His eyebrows furrow in confusion but she can see his knuckles go pale as his grip tightens around the cloth. She draws her shoulders back and eases her thighs further apart. Brienne can feel the harsh exhale of air against the damp skin of her hip, a rush of wet heat flooding her belly and lower. Jaime finally runs the cloth over the coarse hair, against the inner-seam where leg meets cunt, and then with a final breath drags it through the parted lips, the rough cloth against the sensitive skin causing a soft moan to escape her throat. 

At the sound of it, Jaime's hand falls, the rag dropping from his loose grip, and his forehead nestling into the crook of her hip. "Brienne," he murmurs and it sounds like a prayer, like a plea. 

She runs her fingers through his hair, brushing it away from his face until he looks up at her. "I don't believe you're finished," she tells him. 

He closes his eyes tightly and then presses a reverent kiss to lower belly. Jaime lifts her right leg over his shoulder and when his mouth finally meets her cunt, she feels a swooping sensation, like when she would jump over the waterfalls on Tarth into the waiting, cool pools at the bottom. Brienne gasps and moans and holds his face close to her as he licks and sucks at her like a starving man, as if the wet heat of her is the finest wine in all the seven kingdoms. 

He grips her hip in one hand, the stump of his right hold both himself and her steady as her legs begin to shake, and she whimpers and cries out. The sensation builds inside of her until it feels like she can't catch her breath, as if she will break and fall apart like shattered glass. It's when Jaime presses his fingers into her, moving them in rhythm with his tongue, curling them inside of her, filling her, overwhelming a pleasure her body can no longer contain. She cries out and curls her fingers in his hair so tight he groans and cries out himself at the sudden, sharp pain of it. 

Jaime pants heavily against her inner thigh and lets her leg drop until she is solidly on two feet again before he rises from his knees. She watches the cringe of pain, his knees stiff, muscles cramping after the battle they've been through and the hard stone of the floor. He wraps his arm around her and kisses her, slipping his tongue into her mouth so she can taste the musky, salty taste of her own cunt that slicks his lips. She holds him close, molding her body to his, the hair on his chest a welcome feeling against her already over-sensitized skin. 

Brienne feels the press of his hard cock against her thigh and reaches between them to unlace his pants, to give him the pleasure, the release that he gave her. He places his hand against her wrist, halting her movements.

He pulls his lips away from hers and whispers, "not tonight," against her mouth. He must see the flash of worry, of hurt, of rejection that she feels pulse through her, dampening the lightness she feels. He moves his hand to her cheek immediately, holding her gaze and looking at her with every bit of honesty he possesses in that look. "Let me take you to bed," he says. "I need to hold you more than I need you to pleasure my cock."

She blushes. How she's capable of blushing with smell of her cunt still heavy on his beard, she has no idea. "Are you sure?" she asks. 

In response he takes a step back, his hand trailing down her arm until he tangles their fingers together and slowly draws her toward the bed. He lies down and slides until he nearly against the cold wall, never releasing her hand and tugging her until she follows. 

"When we wake after we've slept as long as we please," he tells her softly, pulling her as close as he can, tangling their legs and arms and curling their bodies together like vines twisting together, "I want you to touch me. I want you to know you're safe, that you're alive, that neither of us is going anywhere. That's when I want your hand on me." She can feel the sob catching in her throat, the weight of everything heavy in her chest, even with the warmth of his body, of his -- of his love, she lets herself believe. "I want you to look at me and know I'm not a ghost before I sink inside of you so deeply you won't remember what it was like to be separate bodies." 

Brienne nods against his shoulder and releases a shaking breath, letting the gentle tears slip down her cheeks, letting them fall against the pulse thrumming in his neck. She lets herself feel it all, the shock of blood and bodies, the loss of too many people to count, the victory of watching the seemingly endless field of walking dead drop into icy dust and knowing they had won at least this battle. And she lets herself feel the pleasure and contentment of being held, of being wanted and worshiped. She lets herself hope that maybe, just maybe, if they could win this battle they could win the war. She lets herself believe, if only for a moment, that she can keep this.


End file.
